Category: Dance History

Celebrating Two Recent Dance Virtual Events

JoAnne Tucker / / Current Dance Events, Dance History

While we are all so eager to be at live events, I am so grateful to have been able to participate in two virtual Zoom gatherings from my home in Costa Rica. Without this option I would not have been able to be a part of either of them.  On Monday night, November 22nd, The Martha Hill Dance Fund’s Celebration honoring two dancers started with a film and panel discussion via Vimeo, followed by a social gathering via Zoom. On Saturday afternoon, November 20th, The Sacred Dance Guild had a panel discussion on Dance as Healing, and I was pleased to be one of the five panelists.  It is exciting to see how well events can now be organized and technically handled online.

Let me begin by sharing the first event, “A Panel Discussion on Healing,” which is part of a larger series called “Is This Sacred Dance?”  Back in the late 80’s and into the 90’s I was a member of the Sacred Dance Guild and occasionally led workshops at their conferences.  As Artistic Director of the Avodah Dance Ensemble I was often invited to represent a Jewish perspective, as the majority of the members were Christian.  I was really surprised to be contacted by the current President, Wendy Morrell, this past spring. She was reaching out to explore the possibility of my participating in one of their quarterly events featuring a panel. My name had come up at an organizational meeting, and they were able to find me via a Google search and my postings on this blog.  Wendy and I had a lively conversation and it was very interesting to hear how the organization was addressing the question “What is Sacred Dance?”  After hearing about my recent work with domestic violence survivors and my work in prisons she thought I would be an excellent fit for the fall panel on healing.

There would be five panelists and each of us would be given five minutes to introduce ourselves and the kind of work we did.  Then the moderator would ask three questions before opening it to any questions that had been submitted via “chat.”  I enjoyed preparing and refreshing my presenting skills.  Zoom is easy because you can have notes or read what you have prepared, with the camera still seeing your face and not what you are reading unless you do a screen share.  We were also asked to have a closing movement gesture.

When the day arrived I was prepared and ready to go.  And of course, the electricity went off 10 minutes before the program was to begin.  Losing electricity happens often in Costa Rica.  As my house is closest to the guard house in our community, I have a small generator to keep my internet and the guard house internet working during a blackout.  Wow, was I glad to have that!  So I let the moderator know that I didn’t think it would be a problem and she decided that I should go first just in case it was.  And so I presented mainly about my work in prisons and in making films with domestic violence survivors.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing each of the other four presenters, and I liked the variety of approaches that were shared.  Each of the presenters has a unique background, and presentations were well organized.  I strongly recommend going to this link to learn about the presenters: Alexia Jones, Priya Lakhi, Ilene Serlin and Carla Walter.  https://sacreddanceguild.org/event-details/?event=651

Screenshot of the publicity for the program

The recording of the event has now been posted along with two earlier panels.  Here’s a link to YouTube if you want to watch the program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zlJsV44uHo&list=PL-1ZesdI7wMeVx_P2Gae9zGTOlYGVP78M&index=3

On Monday night, the Martha Hill Dance Fund honored Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Heidi Latsky.  The presentation on Vimeo began with film clips that I think are from the documentary made about Martha Hill.  What a wonderful way to open the evening, seeing Miss Hill and other dancers reminding us of the roots of modern dance!.  (I just discovered that Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter is available to rent or buy at iTunes and I look forward to getting it very soon.) Next were two short films summarizing each of the honorees.

I was particularly thrilled that Jawole was being honored.  I knew Jawole from the time she was a graduate student at Florida State University in Tallahassee in the late 1970’s when I was living there and often attending dance classes at FSU.  I have a very vivid memory of seeing an early piece of hers in an evening concert of student works and thinking, “Wow… that woman has something important to say.”  It stood out and stayed in my memory to this very day. Perhaps that piece for women provided a beginning for what has become one of her most well-known pieces, Shelter.  Shelter officially premiered in 1988 and is set for 6 women. It was first performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1992 and then revised in 2017.   The Ailey website describes it as “a passionate statement about the physical and emotional deprivation of homeless people . . .  the compelling message that the poverty of individuals will inevitably lead to the destitution of all humanity.”  It has been performed by both an all-female and all-male cast.

The other honoree was Heidi Latsky.  I was not familiar with her work at all and look forward to knowing more about her.  What was very fascinating was the video section showing her work with bilateral amputee Lisa Bufano.  She began doing this work in 2006 and refers to this time as an intensive period of creation.  To learn more about Heidi and Jawole I suggest going to the Martha Hill Dance Fund site that tells about the evening and gives full bios:  https://www.marthahilldance.org/martha-hill-virtual-celebration-2021

Danni Gee led an excellent discussion with Heidi and Jawole.   Then, in recognition of the 75th anniversary of the Jose Limon Dance Company, the Vimeo portion ended with a section from There is A Time, choreographed by Jose Limon in 1956.

Following the formal presentation, many of the 80 attendees from the Vimeo section stayed to visit with each other via Zoom.  There were four breakout rooms, and once one figured out the technology it was possible to move from room to room.  It was great fun to see faces that I haven’t seen for years and say a quick hello!  The main topic of conversation was about what live dance events people had attended.  The occasion was a delightful event in the true spirit of The Martha Hill Dance Fund, which was founded to honor, perpetuate and reward Martha Hill’s commitment to dance education and performance internationally.

Screen shot of invitation to the event.

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A Performing Experience Long Forgotten is Remembered!!

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

When I saw that the National Dance Education Organization was having a panel discussion entitled “Celebrating Jewish American Contributions to the Field of Dance,”  I marked the date (May 24th) on my calendar to make sure to zoom in!  I missed the actual time, but it was recorded, so I watched a day later. I was half listening when one of the panel members, Danny Lewis, mentioned being a part of the Yiddish Theatre and said how much he enjoyed working with Felix Fibich!   Wow… I had worked with Fibich too and hadn’t thought about that experience in years!

In the fall of 1961, a friend from Juilliard, Margaret Gettleman, recommended me to Fibich because she was participating in a children’s theatre production he was choreographing, and he needed another dancer.  That’s how I became a wood sprite named Yok Tan in the Jewish Theatre for Children’s production of “To Wake the King.”  Each Sunday from November to April we performed for a large audience of nearly 1,000 children between the ages of 8 to 14 at a theater on the Upper East Side.

The Jewish Theatre for Children was founded and directed by Samuel J. Citron. I have a vague memory of his role as director of “To Wake the King” and found it interesting to Google and learn a little bit about him.  Born in Poland in 1908, he immigrated to the United States when he was thirteen.  He became a lawyer in New York and then earned a Hebrew Teacher’s License and transitioned into Jewish Education full time. Employed by the Jewish Education Committee, he directed its School Dramatics Department and was chair of the Audio-Visual Materials Committee.  For twenty years the theatre he founded presented programs for children each Sunday.  He was also often the author of the plays, as was the case with “To Wake the King” which was based on an old legend that says King David is really not dead but asleep in a cave!

I must admit I don’t remember much about Felix Fibich’s choreography other than an emphasis on how we used our arms and hands as wood sprites,  and I think some of it might have been improvised.  I do remember it was great fun to put on the makeup and costume each Sunday and to receive payment for the performance!  I seem to remember that we received $25 for each performance.  That was pretty good considering it was 1961-62.  We also received reviews in New York City papers.

Program that I saved in my scrapbook!
Photo from my scrapbook taken by the photographer of the Jewish Theatre for Children, November 1961. Can you find me in the picture??

In my next blog I will share more about Felix Fibich.  Danny’s presentation as part of the panel “Celebrating Jewish Americans Contributions to the Field of Dance” is motivation to learn more about the person I worked with 60 years ago.

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Felix Fibich – Aging with Grace and a Model for “You are Never Too Old to . . . ???”

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Personal Life

I knew very little about Felix Fibich when I worked with him in the Children’s Theatre production I mentioned in my last blog.  It has been great fun to learn about him now and to realize that he is a good role model for me as I am nearing my 80th birthday!  In fact, it was when he was 83 that he had national visibility.

Marsha Leon describes this beautifully in an article she wrote shortly after his death in 2014 at the age of 96.

But it was in 2001, with the widely aired sidesplitting Cingular TV commercial, that Fibich got national visibility. Looking like a bald leprechaun in a black body-fitting leotard, he attempts to teach a group of 300 lb. football players how to perform plies (elegant balletic squats) and entrechats (a balletic feat that involves twice crossing your legs at the ankle in mid-air). He exhorts these gravity-bound Sumo size athletes “to strut- trut-strut like a peacock” to “walk like a camel in the desert” and “sway like a Redwood tree.”            https://forward.com/schmooze/195544/remembering-felix-fibich-yiddish-choreographer-dan/

And here’s the link to watch the actual commercial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28xAjbdiZCM

But that is not all that Fibich accomplished in his 80’s. In an essay which was  based on a February 1997 interviewconducted by Judith Brin Ingber for the Oral History Project, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, New York City), Ingber wrote:

In the 1990s, by then in his middle eighties, Fibich experienced a renaissance as both a dancer and choreographer. He performed a lead role in the musical Planet Lulu [directed by the Belgian Michel Laub]7 which toured extensively throughout Europe in 1998 and 1999; and because of his acting skills and facility with French, Yiddish, Polish and English he acted simultaneously in all those languages in the 1998 full length French feature film, XXL. His homecoming to Poland as a dancer/teacher at the famed Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival in July 1996 resulted in a Polish television special about him and requests for him to appear again in Poland. He has also taught for the last decade under the auspices of KlezKamp at their annual New York Yiddish Folk Arts Program, their master teacher for “Interpreting Jewish Dance,” as part of their “Living Tradition Meetings with Our Masters.”  http://www.jbriningber.com/Fibich_Apr_18_07.pdf

I highly recommend using the link to the full essay and interview if you are interested in learning more about Fibich!

To add to Judith’s article about things Fibich did in his 80’s, there were several other theatre performances, and appearances in Law and Order on television.

In learning about Fibich’s early life, several themes became apparent!  He loved Jewish culture and Yiddish theatre, where he found ways to express himself.  He also was consistently challenged by changes in the world happening around him, fleeing and escaping, often leaving everything behind!

He was born in 1917 in Warsaw, Poland.  He began participating in theater in the 1930’s.  He grew up with Polish as his main language, so in order to audition for the theater company he wanted to join, he learned Yiddish.  It was in the theater company that he met Judith Berg, who was choreographing for the company and would later become his wife.

After Poland was invaded by the Germans, Mr. Fibich and his parents were sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1940, Mr. Fibich escaped and traveled to Soviet-controlled Bialystok. It was there he reconnected with Judith Berg who was working in a Yiddish revue.  They toured with the troupe and were married before returning to Poland when the war was over. His parents died in the Holocaust.

Once back in Poland, Fibich and Berg developed a dance program for orphaned children, before fleeing again — this time to Paris in 1949 when the Communists took over Poland.  A year later they came to America where they toured, taught and choreographed, becoming an important part of Yiddish Theater in the U.S. over the next several decades.

In Daniel Lewis’ book  A Life in Choreography and the Art of Dance, Danny describes working with Felix beginning when he was in High School in 1961.  He continued working for him until 1967, both in the actual Yiddish Theater on the Lower East Side and also in classical concert performances as part of the Fibich Dance Company.  Danny relates how Felix always went to the High School of Performing Arts and Juilliard to find and recruit dancers.  Danny goes on to say that Fibich had a huge effect on many young dancers and actors, giving them employment and a salary in the early part of their careers.

It is indeed fun to see how one thing can lead to another.  An email letting me know that the National Dance Education Association was doing a panel discussion on Jewish contributions to dance in the United States led me to hear Danny Lewis speak about Felix Fibich.  Not only did it bring back recollections of time spent in a Children’s Theatre production but it led me to do research about him.  I have a lot of respect for how Fibich conducted his life, and he is now a role model for me, reminding me of all the possibilities in the coming years! Thank you, Danny, for your presentation and your book, and thank you Felix Fibich for your passion and determination!

Felix Fibich being lifted by a football player in the Commercial he made for the Super Bowl!
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Book Review: Daniel Lewis: A Life in Choreography and the Art of Dance

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History
Front cover image, Daniel Lewis in La Malinche, choreography by Jose Limon, photograph by Eddie Effron, courtesy Daniel Lewis archives.

I found this book particularly fascinating and fun to read because it enriched and filled in gaps in my knowledge of modern dance from 1962 to 2011. I was active in the New York City dance scene some of the time from 1958 to 2004, and I knew, or knew of, or saw perform, many of the people that are a part of this book.

The format of the book is unique.  It is jointly written by Daniel Lewis and Donna Krasnow.  Each chapter begins with a paragraph written by Lewis, followed by information about that period in Danny’s life in a biography format drawing on “60 archival boxes of photos, programs, letters, newspaper articles, reviews, posters. And even old airline tickets.”  Danny also gave Krasnow a list of people to contact and interview. Included in the book are sections called “Through His Friends Eyes.” Krasnow identifies the friend and how he/she knew Danny and then provides a direct passage from the friend.

As is pointed out in the preface, “[Danny’s] life covered every aspect of the field – dancer, teacher, choreographer, collaborator, artistic director, administrator, mentor and benefactor.” By the time I finished the book I had an inside look at all these  facets of his life.  While I have only briefly met Danny, I think at a Juilliard alumni event, I do remember watching him in class at Juilliard.  I was a second-year student and he was a first-year student.  The first year I had to take modern dance technique developed by Jose Limon and technique by Martha Graham, but the second year I did not.  I was clearly a Graham person, but one day (and I am not sure why) I was watching the Limon class and was struck with how beautifully Danny moved across the floor in various combinations.

It was really interesting to learn that during his Juilliard student years:

Danny was teaching as a substitute for Jose when he couldn’t be there and demonstrating regularly for his classes, so Danny had a strange kind of in-between role as student and faculty.  He was still friends with the students as well as having close ties with Martha Hill and Jose Limon.  Finally in 1967, Danny was hired by Martha as a regular faculty member when he was only twenty-three years old.

Krasnow describes in the preface how she took classes with Danny, and the importance of his unique approach to teaching the Limon technique.  She describes his gift so clearly, and I quote:

He situated the technique in a larger vision of Limon as the choreographer, the musician, and the artist.  We were learning exquisitely gorgeous movement phrases with intricate rhythms, precarious balances, and complex multilimbed coordinations, but all the while, Danny was expressing in analysis and imagery the principles of the work: fall and recovery, suspension, opposition, isolation, and always weight and breath . . . .

After reading about Danny’s style of teaching,  I certainly wondered if I wouldn’t have liked Limon technique much more if I had had classes with Danny.  How fortunate for Juilliard students who came just a year or so after me, that Martha Hill recognized Danny’s talents and had him teaching!

It was also in his first year at Juilliard that he began touring with the Limon Company. Danny shares that “the experience of touring, performing and having dances created on me by a master artist shaped me not only as a dancer, but as a choreographer and person.”  In this section of the book we learn a lot about Jose Limon and the company.  I have loved seeing a number of Limon’s works, particularly There is A Time, The Moor’s Pavone, and Missa Brevis, so I found this section right on target.  Danny became Artistic Director of the Limon Company from 1972–1974.

One of the most helpful parts of the book is a chart that gives the timeline of Danny’s life from his birth to the present.  Since the book isn’t written in strict chronological order, it is helpful to refer back to this.

From 1987 to 2011 Danny was the Dean of Dance at New World School of the Arts (NWSA).  I really loved reading about,  and have huge admiration and respect for, the innovative way that Danny developed the dance program at the NWSA.  It was very interesting to read how he slowly built the program.  He would re-evaluate the curriculum each year and see ways to improve it.  One unique aspect was that the school always kept  a “broad range of dance styles from various cultures.”  The program began first as a high school and then developed into a college program with its first graduating class of ten students in 1992.

Among the students who studied at NWSA is Robert Battle, who is now the director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.  Battle’s section on “Through His Friends Eyes” was one of my favorites.  Battle reports, “Danny told me that one day I should have my own company.” Indeed Battle did  have his own company, and now he leads one of the major dance companies in the United States.  Battle also shares:

When I returned to NWSA to set a work … sitting in the office talking with him was like watching a circus act. Danny would be doing multiple things at once – on the phone, solving problems and making things possible. I came to appreciate this quality in my own life, the job of juggling many balls at once . . . .

When Battle spoke at Danny’s retirement ceremony, he said, “I can only quote the words of Patrick Henry, ‘I know of no other way of judging the future but by the past,’ and so I seriously doubt Danny is retiring.”

As a friend of Danny’s on Facebook, I can see this is true.  Danny continues to play an active role in the dance community in a variety of different ways.

My goal in this review is to point out a few of the parts of the book that strongly resonated with me and to encourage you to read the book for yourself. I have left out much about the time Daniel directed his own company and many important people in the dance community such as Anna Sokolow that he worked with or the numerous things he did while at NWSA . Learn more by ordering the book and by following some of the links at the bottom of this blog.  The book is easily available via Amazon. I enjoyed reading it on my Kindle here in Costa Rica.  Thank you, Danny, for your outstanding contribution to dance and for making the documentation of your life work available for the dance community!

Other recommended links:

https://daniellewisdance.com/videos/

https://daniellewisdance.com/awards/

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Dance and Poetry: An Elegy for Helen Tamiris

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Perry-Mansfield, Personal Life, Poetry, Uncategorized

Recently I signed up for an Introduction to Poetry class.  Several things motivated me.  We had begun a writer’s group where I live, and I thought I would like to share poems. I have loved poetry since I was a teenager, and I have choreographed many pieces to poems.

In our very first class the teacher introduced us to the form of elegy and used Walt Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! as an example. After going over the format and purpose of the elegy, he asked us to write one. As I reread O Captain! My Captain! I began reflecting on the experience of being in Helen Tamiris’s Dance for Walt Whitman at Perry-Mansfield during the summer of 1958.   That was a defining experience in helping me realize that I wanted a career in dance, and it had provided an excellent example of how poetry can inspire a piece of choreography.

When I look back over my career as a choreographer, I realize how often I turned to poetry as the stimulus for movement.  That idea had been introduced to me by Helen Tamiris, so it was no surprise that I decided to do my elegy for her and to use the structure and rhyming pattern of O Captain! My Captain! as my model.

Elegy for Helen Tamiris

By JoAnne Tucker

A frayed program, carefully saved, recalls long ago days

There is still time to remember and sing your praise

You stood, arms outstretched, framed by aspen gently swaying

Directions given, challenges accepted, our energy outpouring,

            Alas, a google search

            Your name barely marked

            Too many years have passed

            Still a desire remains in my heart.

Those of us, hold tightly onto each other,

Make a chain, rock endlessly, calling the primal mother

We cannot forget, your teaching remains within us living

We have gone forth, as a curious child goes exploring.

            Tamiris, O Tamiris

            Fifty years since you departed

            Your legacy begins to fade

            Memories linger in my heart.

A legacy of movement and poetry continues still,

New writers and dancers passionate with strong will.

So this old crone will continue to sing your praise

Encourage, mentor and celebrate all my days

            To dance to the spoken verse

            To follow your pioneer art

            Words carefully written

            Danced from the heart

Helen Tamiris at Perry-Mansfield, July 1958. Photo taken by JoAnne Tucker.

The first set of poems I choreographed was for a school program in Pittsburgh shortly after leaving Juilliard. The dancers were six high school students, and the program toured several elementary schools and won a Carnegie Award.  Later I would continue to turn to poetry with the Avodah Dance Ensemble, and during my thirty years as Artist Director of that company, I  created dances to a variety of different poems. The ones that stand out the most in my memory are:

  • I Never Saw Another Butterfly, using poems written by children in the Terezin Concentration Camp
  • Shema, incorporating poetry of Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi
  • Let My People Go, based on James Weldon Johnson’s poem of the same title
  • In the Garden, drawn from several poems in the collection Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life, translated by Raymond Scheindlin
  • Selichot Suite, a section of which uses Denise Levertov’s poem The Thread

I end by welcoming dancers and choreographers to share what poems they have enjoyed dancing to or creating movement for.  If you haven’t used poetry and movement together, I strongly encourage you to try it!

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Dance History Resources

JoAnne Tucker / / Current Dance Events, Dance History, Personal Life

On October 26th, I Zoomed an interesting dance history presentation by Wendy Perron at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, part of the New York City Library System.  This was the third part of Perron ‘s series “The Dance Historian Is In,” and it focused on Pina Bausch’s years at Juilliard, 1959-60 and 1960-61, when she worked with Paul Sanasardo and Paul Taylor.  Perron included pictures and focused a lot on Pina’s work with Anthony Tudor when she was at Juilliard.  Perron pointed out that these two years had a strong influence on Pina’s work, more than most critics mention.

It was during this time that Pina got to know Alfredo Corvino, and when he retired from Juilliard, Pina asked him to be the ballet master for her company.  He held that position until his death, and then his daughters continued working with the company.

One of the most interesting things I learned during the hour-and-a-half  Zoom program was that Juilliard has photos and scrapbooks online that are available for anyone to look at or use for research.  I went to the site, and the opening page clearly states the purpose of the website:

Welcome to the Juilliard Archives

Discover Juilliard’s rich history, from the school’s opening in 1905 to present, by exploring a selection of materials from our digital collections. Please see our Featured Collections at the link above.

I had fun looking at the Dance Scrapbooks which go from 1951/52 to 1990/91. Of course I was most curious about the years that I was there.  What a delight and surprise to see all the different pieces that I performed in workshops from Louis Horst’s Modern Form Composition Class.  A few I remember but some I had totally forgotten about.  It was also a trip down memory lane to see what other classmates had done and performed in the same workshops.

Screenshots from the Juilliard Scrapbook 1961-62, (Klineman is my maiden name.)

Finding the Juilliard archives online made me wonder what other resources there are for dance history enthusiasts!  Here are a few that I found:

Wendy Perron’s website  is filled with lots of things she has written about dance, with an archive that is worth exploring.  She also lists her upcoming events and some that have already happened and are still viewable online.

I was surprised to see what was available at The Library of Congress website.  Their digital collections  have “dance materials which represent genres including worldwide traditional dances, European and American social dance practices, ballet and modern dance, and more!  Digitized items include choreographic notes, photographs, musical scores, moving images, sound recordings, rare books, and artwork.”  Among the collections online are:

  • Martha Graham’s work between 1918 and 1949. Objects include concert programs, clippings, press announcements reviews, libretti, scripts, and photographs.
  • Selections from the Katherine Dunham Collection
  • Digitalized items from Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev
  • 200 collection items from Bronislava Nijinska

And of course, the best place for on-site research is the New York City Library for the Performing Arts, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division.  I have spent some time at the library researching and learning about various dance figures.  I have also enjoyed watching various videotapes.  I highly recommend a trip there for fun or if you are seriously researching something in dance.  There is both a phone number and email address online so that one can inquire what the library might have in the area of one’s research before making a trip.

There are also lots of specialized collections at various universities or local libraries where individuals have donated their scrapbooks, photographs etc.  For example, when I moved to Costa Rica, I decided to donate all the material of the Avodah Dance Ensemble (up to when I retired as founding director) to the American Jewish Archives, located in Cincinnati and connected to Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. Avodah regularly performed at HUC-JIR in New York City,

Just for fun I Googled a few names to see if there were collections at different places.  One of my favorite writers and teachers of improvisational movement is Barbara Mettler.  She donated some of her collection to Hampshire College, and this is easily available online. Here’s a link to the collection: https://www.hampshire.edu/library/archives-and-special-collections/other-archival-resources-and-full-text-documents/barbara-2.

Hanya Holm’s papers are at Stanford University, and there is information about them at the Online Archive of California.  It doesn’t look like any actual material is available online, rather a list of the different boxes.

Most other dancers I Googled left their collections to the NY Performing Arts Library.

If you know of a collection that might interest Mostly Dance blog readers, please leave a comment sharing the name of the collection and any contact details to find out more information.  I will review and maybe do another blog sharing the information I receive.

Let me close by thanking Wendy Perron for her excellent presentation, letting me know about the Juilliard online Archives and piquing my interest to see what else might be available.

Past …. and Present – December 2022: A Guest Post by Dina McDermott

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Guest Posts

After earning her B.F.A. in dance at The Juilliard School in New York, Dina performed in the downtown and Off-Broadway scene. During over four decades in the dance world, she has been a contemporary dancer, choreographer, teacher, artistic director (LEAVING GROUND/DANCE) and writer.  Her books include A Dancer’s Diary: Around the World in Thirteen Dances (see excerpt below) and Birds of a Feather, a Memoir.  Additionally, her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Dance International and on criticaldance.org. She has served on the faculty of Pacific Northwest Ballet School since 2001.

_________________

After I graduated from The Juilliard School Dance Division in 1981, I auditioned and was accepted into the Avodah Dance Ensemble, directed by JoAnne Tucker, Ph.D. Tucker’s movement vocabulary showed a distinct influence of Graham technique, so I felt right at home, having studied at both the Martha Graham School and Juilliard. I dove right into learning the repertory – “Kaddish,” “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” and “Noshing,” among others. The company toured throughout the U.S, performing in reform temples and Jewish Community Centers. Although I was raised Roman Catholic, I was fascinated with JoAnne’s weaving of movement from Jewish liturgy and ritual; it was definitely a learning experience at the intersection of dance, religion and culture.

I danced with Avodah for two years, and then took an offer to join the Easy Moving Dance Company based in North Carolina for a short tour, then returned to New York City to dance with the Douglas Hamby Dance Company, Chen and Dancers, and Dance Circle, directed by Ernesta Corvino. Fast forward to forty years later – JoAnne and I reconnected on social media, and upon my visiting here at her hacienda in Costa Rica, she has kindly asked me to be a guest blogger for mostlydance.com.  I am happy and honored to both renew our friendship and to oblige her as a guest blogger on mostlydance.com.

Whereas most of my fellow dancers at Juilliard and later at graduate school at Arizona State University loathed any writing assignments, I relished them. I have always been a voracious reader and in recent years, I came to identify as a dancer who writes.  In the early 2000’s, I became a moderator on the website criticaldance.org (it’s still going strong – check it out!) during its formative years, a site featuring reviews and feature articles, curated from around the world. After returning from a cultural tour of Cuba in 2014, I wrote a review of the National Ballet of Cuba’s transcendent “Swan Lake” production for criticaldance.org. I later contributed reviews of the works of Akram Khan, Crystal Pite, Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet and classical Balinese dance. A friend, mentor and set designer, Bou Frankel, suggested I collate these reviews and articles from criticaldance.org into a book, and so my first book, A Dancer’s Diary: Around the World in Thirteen Dances, was born.

_________________

In today’s blog post, I share the Introduction of my book. I want to invite you on a journey with me through the mesmerizing and memorable world of dance, with stops along the way in thirteen different countries/choreographers.

Dina McDermott and Marty Ponte in Mandala. Photo: Shaun Parkhurst

Dancer’s Diary

Introduction

Like trying to capture a delicate butterfly, the art of dance enthralls yet eludes us. Like sand running through our fingers, it slips through our grasp when we attempt to quantify it. A dance performance can shock, bore or perturb us, but when the final curtain descends, it is gone forever, never to be repeated precisely the same way again. Dance embodies the elusiveness of time and memory, the impermanence of life.

As we tumble through the twenty-first century, globalization and the ever-widening influence of technology and social media render the art of dance ever more precious and necessary. Dance connects us to our humanity and helps us to locate our unique identity within humanity. In this book, I highlight some lesser known and distinct forms, choreographers and dancers, both theatrical and indigenous. Whether it be a specific Hindu view of the cosmos (Bali), an exquisite ballet tradition in an isolated, socialist country (Cuba), exploration of identity/sexuality (David Rousseve/REALITY), hybridization of Easter/Western forms (H.T. Chen/Remy Charlip) the Jewish/Arab conflict presented in We Love Arabs (Hillel Kogan), the tragedy of Betroffenheit (Crystal Pite/Jonathan Young), or the ancient spirit of duende in flamenco, (Spain), dance is rooted in the corporeal, but aspires to the divine. Join me on this terpsichorean journey, and together we will explore the sublime panoply of human movement-dance!”

 A Dancer’s Diary: Around the World in Thirteen Dances, is available on Amazon. For further info-dinamcdermott.com.  Questions or to purchase an autographed copy, contact Dina directly at mcdermott910@gmail.com.

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Options for Streaming the Nutcracker Ballet – December 2022

JoAnne Tucker / / Arts in Education, Current Dance Events, Dance History

For as long as I can remember, Nutcracker performances and the holiday season have gone together. Many dancers have early memories of being in a Nutcracker.  From major ballet companies to small regional companies, energies have gone into creating Nutcracker performances to delight local audiences and to help support the company financially, as shows are usually well attended.  Even some modern companies have ventured into their own interpretations.  Donald Byrd created the Harlem Nutcracker back in 1996 but unfortunately by 2001 it had financially bankrupted his company.  He is now recreating the work in Seattle, with more financial care, and this year he has offered the Harlem Nutcracker Teaser to be followed by a full production next year.  Mark Morris created The Hard Nut which is set to Tchaikovsky’s 1982 score.  It takes inspiration from the “comic artist Charles Burns, whose art is personal and deeply instilled with archetypal concepts of guilt, childhood, adolescent sexuality, and poignant nostalgic portrayals of post-war America” (Wikipedia). The Hard Nut was performed this year at the Detroit Opera House.

For this blog I am going to share three different Nutcrackers which you can stream online.  New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker created by George Balanchine is available to watch on Hulu.  Disney Plus has a brand-new Hip-Hop Nutcracker which has some surprise cameo performances.  Netflix has Debbie Allen’s Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker which is a documentary about her school and shows the process from audition to performance of her Nutcracker which involves many students and even some teachers.

On Hulu, The New York City Ballet production is the classical Nutcracker we usually think about.  It had its original premiere in 1954 created by George Balanchine to the music of Peter Tchaikovsky.  Like the original Nutcracker ballet created in 1892 by Marius Petipa, it is in two acts.  The libretto was adapted from Hoffmann’s 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.  The version on Hulu was filmed in 1993 adapted by Peter Martins with narration by Kelvin Klein.

The New York City Ballet website informs us that the production involves all “90 dancers in the company, 62 musicians, 40 stagehands and more than 125 children in two alternating casts from the School of American Ballet.”

The stage elements are amazing with a Christmas tree that grows from 12 feet to 41 feet and a bed that floats through the sky.  While it is filmed beautifully, I sometimes was frustrated by the close-ups when I really wanted to have a full view of the stage.  The dancing is outstanding with Darci Kistler as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her partner Damian Woetzel as Cavalier.  Kyra Nichols is beautiful as Dewdrop.  The children from the school are well trained and fun to watch as party guests, soldiers, angels, and mice.  I was surprised that the young boy playing  Drosselmeier’s nephew was Macaulay Culkin, best known for Home Alone.  And sure, enough Culkin did indeed study at the School of American Ballet.

On Netflix is an original documentary  produced by Shondraland titled Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker.  It focuses on Debbie Allen, who had an outstanding award-winning career on television, in theaters and the movies as a dancer, singer and actress.  In 2001 she formed the Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA).  In 2008 she created Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. The documentary was created in 2020. While the documentary opens with Debbie Allen coaching young children to the music of Tchaikovsky, the ballet also incorporates a variety of other music and styles.  200 children from the ages of 4 and older participate in the ballet. We never see The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker from beginning to end; instead we are given a backstage look at how it is put together from the children’s auditions to rehearsals to backstage before the performance.  Excerpts from the performance are included.

Woven into the documentary is Debbie Allen’s biography.  Teachers at the DADA are interviewed, as well as several students.  A few students are followed in more detail sharing their dreams and frustrations of having a career in dance.  Debbie Allen’s coaching of the dancers is very interesting as she treats them as professionals and expects them to behavior appropriately.  At one point she insists they stop talking or get fired!!

Savion Glover is guest choreographer, and we see several excerpts where tap dancing is featured. This production is filled with high energy and lots of imagination. The young dancers are well rehearsed and many of the dancers have participated in the ballet over several years (as do dancers from the School of American Ballet in the NYC Ballet’s Nutcracker).  They give 8 performances each year with a total of 11,520 seats and ticket sales of $450,000.  This is a major fundraiser for DADA, which provides classes for students whether they can pay or not.

Hip Hop Nutcracker is a new video on Disney Plus and it is lots of fun to watch.  It is described as a newly imagined and reinvented Nutcracker.  Basically the plot is that Maria Clara’s parents are not getting along and she takes them on various adventures to get them back together.

The first fun thing I noticed was how cleverly they use the Tchaikovsky music.  We hear a theme and soon it blends into a hip hop sound or music.  At one point Maria Clara does a playful hip hopish solo to some of the actual score and amazingly it fits very well.  The program opens with a narrator rapping and he comes back in a few other places.  The group choreography is lively, well executed and just plain fun to watch.

There are two unique cameo appearances.  The first is Tiler Peck coming to life as a Toy Doll.  It has traditional ballet steps with some added twists.  In a November 29, 2022 interview Tiler speaks about when she first saw The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center and decided she wanted to perform on that stage, to her joy in dancing various roles in The Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet and finally how she enjoyed being a part of the Hip Hop Nutcracker.  She is hoping that it will bring a different audience to The Nutcracker. https://news.yahoo.com/ballet-dancer-tiler-peck-dishes-212929808.html

The second cameo, somewhat briefer so it is easy to miss, is Mikhail Baryshnikov.  He joins the character Drosselmeyer as both come down brownstone steps.  A scene title calls him the Spirit of Snow.  Alas it is much too short.  The first time I watched it…. I did a double take saying, “Wow that looks like Baryshnikov” and of course when I looked at the cast credits, sure enough it was!

I hope you take some time to watch at least one of these Nutcrackers.  All three are different and each is special in its own way.  And maybe some of you have memories of being in The Nutcracker.  Elizabeth McPherson,(a regular reader, Avodah Dance Ensemble member for 7 years, and now Dr. McPherson, Director of Dance at Montclair State University, and author of several dance history books) shared this picture of her getting ready backstage for Atlanta’s Nutcracker when she was about ten years old. Her teacher, Janet Clough, is fixing her hair.  Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing a Nutcracker memory with us.  Do any other readers have pictures or memories they would like to share of being in or seeing a Nutcracker performance?

Elizabeth McPherson getting ready for the Atlanta Nutcracker
with her teacher, Janet Clough, fixing her hair.
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First Visit to Jacob’s Pillow in 1956 and Virtual Visit 2023

JoAnne Tucker / / Current Dance Events, Dance History, Personal Life

Some memories stay vividly with you even after 67 years. The memory of my first visit to Jacob’s Pillow in 1956 is such a memory.

I was attending Belgian Village Camp located in Cummington, MA.  While I was only thirteen, a close friend of my Mom’s knew of my strong interest in teaching dance.   She had a good friend who ran the camp and contacted her, sharing my interest.  I was given a scholarship with the understanding that I would teach the younger kids dance.  I was thrilled.

It was a wonderful summer and I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the young girls creative movement, much as I had learned from my teacher Genevieve Jones. And the highlight was when a group of us was taken to Jacob’s Pillow for an afternoon performance.

In a rustic theatre, the performance began with Ted Shawn introducing himself to us and telling us about Jacob’s Pillow.  I don’t remember his exact words, but my thirteen-year-old self knew he was a very important person and spoke to us in a very dignified manner.

Later I would learn just how important a figure he was in the creation of American modern dance.  A New York Times article written by Clive Barnes shortly after his death gives good insight into his role:

THE death of Ted Shawn shortly after his 80th birthday brings to an end a whole era in American dance. Shawn, together with his wife, the late Ruth St. Denis, was largely responsible for the creation of American modern‐dance.

It was in 1915 that Shawn and his wife started the original Denishawn School in Los Angeles, and from this school emerged the first generation of American modern dancers, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. These were the new pioneers of American modern‐dance, and Shawn was their spiritual father.   https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/16/archives/ted-shawn-18911972.html

The current Jacob’s Pillow website points out that in 1930 Shawn purchased a “rundown farm in the Berkshires known as Jacob’s Pillow … and that laid the groundwork for both his revolutionary company of men dancers and America’s oldest dance festival.”

On YouTube you can watch a piece of his company of men performing

When our camp visited the Pillow, Shawn said the performance that day would let us see three different kinds of dance: modern, ethnic and ballet. I do not remember the modern or ethnic dance performances at all, but having the opportunity to see Alicia Markova dance “The Dying Swan” was breathtaking.

Markova was 46 when I saw her perform, and the emotion and delicacy that she exhibited, especially in her arms, stood out.  She had begun performing when she was just 14, discovered by Diaghilev.  After her time with the Ballet Russes she moved to London and danced with the Sadler Wells Ballet Company and was noted for her partnership with Anton Dolin.  On YouTube you can find excerpts of her dancing The Dying Swan and also Giselle with Anton Dolin as her partner.

Link to The Dying Swan

Link to Giselle 

The summer at Belgian Village opened my eyes to new possibilities ahead and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to begin exploring my teaching abilities and to visit Jacob’s Pillow.

                   Age 13 at Belgian Village Camp

Now living in Costa Rica, I don’t get many opportunities to see dance, so I am very glad that Jacob’s Pillow is now making so much available online.  Some videos and films are free and that includes the short films that are a part of Inside the Pillow Lab and some longer films that are part of Pillow Talk.  It is a great resource both for gaining a historical perspective and for knowing what is happening now.  For example, one film of historical note in Pillow Talk is “Ann Hutchinson Guest: A Century +”:

Celebrating the life of dance notation pioneer Ann Hutchinson Guest (1918-2022), her legacy and deep Pillow roots are explored by friends, family, and fans including Norton  Owen, Michael Richter, Tina Curran, and Melanie Dana, with many video clips of Guest herself.  (1:00:37)

The Pillow Lab videos are short interviews with choreographers, about the work they created while at Jacob’s Pillow.  While they are talking, we see dancers moving with phrases from the developing piece.  The videos are short and informative with a diverse group of choreographers.

There is also a pay-for-events section where one can select films of past performances at Jacob’s Pillow.   Currently streaming now and available for a fee of $15 is the Limon Dance Company which is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary.  It was added on January 9th and will be available until February 19th.  Once you pay you may watch the performance as many times as you like.   Also available are pre- and post-show talks related to the performance, and these are free.

So even if you can’t make an in-person trip to the Pillow, you have lots of options to watch, many for free and some costing $15.

If you have studied at Jacob’s Pillow, performed there or attended a memorable performance, I invite you to add a comment — or better yet, to contact me to do a guest post about your experience.

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Guest Blog – Tara Stepenberg: First visit to Jacob’s Pillow – l953 – I am 10 years old

JoAnne Tucker / / Dance History, Guest Posts

I am pleased to welcome Tara Stepenberg as a guest blogger.  Tara responded enthusiastically to my last blog about Jacob’s Pillow, when I invited anyone who had a memorable experience at the Pillow to contact me about doing a guest blog.  Thank you, Tara, for sharing your experience.  JoAnne

One evening in August of 1953, my mother and I went to Jacob’s Pillow for a performance.  It was before dusk when we arrived. What first struck me were the rustic wooden cabins where students were staying. As we walked on the path by the cabins, the open windows allowed one to see inside.  The rooms had lights on, and I could peer in, seeing pointe shoes hanging in the rooms (perhaps hanging down from rafters).  I loved the look of that; it has stayed with me all these years and was experienced like some kind of “touchstone” for the future.

As was mentioned in a previous post, the place where the performances occurred was the “barn” and the program had different dance styles: classical ballet, modern and “ethnic” dance. (Each style was given equal weight. This was an important vision of Ted Shawn’s and was not lost on me).   The performances were by the best representatives of these styles.  I believe I saw Alicia Markova and perhaps one other ballet performer.  For the “ethnic” portion, I saw the dynamic Jean Leon Destine (1918-2013) and his Afro-Haitian company.   (For more information, google danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org to see photographs of this company.) He performed with Katherine Dunham and established his own company emphasizing dances/rituals from Haiti.

What I remember most about the performance is Giselle’s Revenge by Myra Kinch.  I had seen the ballet Giselle in Rochester, but this Giselle was hilarious, dressed in all black, looking like the Addams Family, and there was a coffin and a hammer! (Giselle seduces her Albrecht into the coffin and nails it shut.) For photographs, google “Myra Kinch Giselle’s Revenge,” and photographs from Getty Images appear. (I could not find videos). Myra Kinch (1904-1981) was a modern dancer born in LA who trained with La Meri. She was known for her humor and satire – the focus of her choreographic output.  She was head of the Modern Dance program at Jacob’s Pillow for 25 years beginning in l948.

The trip to Jacob’s Pillow was particularly memorable because it solidified for me what I wanted to do with my life.  The affirmation occurred at dinnertime a day after the Jacob’s Pillow performance during our summer’s visit to a “farm” in Great Barrington. For several years, my family went to the Berkshires to spend a week on the “farm” of a family who were friends of my parents’ from their days with the American Labor Party.  This lovely “farm” in Great Barrington, MA, was a beautiful place with many blackberry bushes, a nearby brook, and a run-down one-room schoolhouse filled with “old” books.  The primary family also housed refugees from time to time and during this summer I noticed a person, a woman who had numbers on her forearm, and I learned that this woman had been in Auschwitz. (This was my first encounter with a survivor from the camps.)

I can see myself standing at the dinner table with many people around it.  Someone asked me what I wanted to do or be when I grew up (I don’t remember the exact question).  My response was, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a dancer, graduate high school early and go to New York.”  And in fact I graduated high school just after turning 16, went to the Boston Conservatory of Music for a year, then Juilliard, and after graduating, performed with Anna Sokolow for a year.

Tara, age 11, the year after she visited Jacob’s Pillow.

Bio. Tara Stepenberg (ne. Francia Roxin)  Tara (M.Ed., CMA, RMT) a former Education Director of LIMS, has been deeply engaged with movement for over 50 years, as a performing, creative artist, university professor, reconstructor from Labanotation, movement coach, somatic and authentic movement practitioner. She founded & directed the Dance Department at Hampshire College, taught at SUNY Brockport, The Naropa Institute, Antioch New England, Wesleyan Summer Program and Southwestern College. She currently is on the conditioning staff of Pacific Northwest Ballet, has a private practice Somatic Resonance, and in January (2022) completed the Ways of Seeing program with Suzi Tortora. Tara loves the places and spaces that engagement with the bodymind reveals.

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